March 31, 2010

My Creative X-Fi sound card casually laying on my desk.  I've been playing with my IR filter - I think I need to fashion up a lens hood before I try to take any more pictures.  I get some serious banding when I go to start processing them.

March 30, 2010

My daughter planted pansies in pots in school today. We put it in the window sill, and it looked like it wanted to tell a story there.  A neat trick - being so close to the screen with a low aperture made for a nice, soft background.

March 29, 2010

This poor little fawn was found roaming the living room.  Apparently, it had escaped the hard, cruel conditions of somebody's Farmville web game.

Too often, Farmville animals are neglected and left to roam, as President Bush once noted, 'The darkest corners of the Internet."

Won't you help them?
Please - give generously (and often!)

March 28, 2010

Picture of a camcorder taking a picture of my camera.  It's not very inventive, but sometimes you just have to hit your quota.  (More likely, just a lack of foresight in getting a picture before bedtime . . .)

March 27, 2010

I think I got a little heavy-handed with the HDR on this shot.  The family stopped at the Chocolate Cafe this evening for a bit of dessert.  With the way the night sky was lit up, I couldn't resist setting up the camera and getting a picture.

I'd recommend the white chocolate chai tea (or the chocolate fondue!)

March 26, 2010

I think this one is my favorite so far.  I made a snowman out of marshmallows and set him ablaze.  The end result was what we have here.

I set up my 50mm at its lowest aperture (on the tripod) and kept shooting until the marshmallow man was a puddle.  I want to take the series of shots and clean them up a bit - it makes for a nice bit of time lapse photography!

The next time I do this, I'll use the grill outside.  Roasted marshmallows smell nice, but burning pretzels?  Not so much . . .

March 25, 2010

I have a small collection of skeletons and chickens hanging from my cubicle wall.  I'd do the little baby doll heads, but I get enough questions regarding the chickens!
I played a bit more in Photoshop - converted the image to Lab Color and used unsharp mask on the 'Lightness' layer. Web version was okay, but the 16-bit version looked really nice!

March 24, 2010

Another stuffed animal getting a little boozy by the marsala wine.
For fun, I decided to try and make a box to control the shadows a bit.  I see that this is only one part - I'll need to gain better control of the light source.  Just for fun, I played with the color curves in Photoshop to highlight the colors a bit.

March 23, 2010

It's my mantra!

March 22, 2010

I got this one pretty early in the day - it's a jar filled with ginger cookies.  I don't add the cloves (since no one here likes 'em) - so I trip when I add the cinnamon and ginger.  The amount of crystallized ginger in these things qualify them as an herbal remedy!

March 21, 2010

I love little kids and phonetic spellings!

March 20, 2010

We spent the morning at the Anthony Thomas open house.  Really glad we went early - crowds were picking up by the time we left.

March 19, 2010

Animal crackers - I need to fix up my 'studio' a bit.  I want to make a movie, but I haven't figured out how to set it up.  I think I'll need to start with a decent light source . . .

March 18, 2010

Time to get ready for bike riding!  Of course, I lost my air pump, so I'm not to excited about needing to replace it.

I had set this picture up in the Photomatix Demo - it was beautiful!  Then I got  look at all of those watermarks . . . .  

March 17, 2010

Scarlett O'Hara.  And friend.

March 16, 2010

A cup of chocolate chai tea from the Chocolate Cafe.

March 15, 2010

Reece and I made a Leprechaun trap for his Kindergarten class. I think he's gonna catch one of the little buggers!

March 14, 2010

Cherry pie!!  It's like a Twin Peaks theme here!

I need to remember my prime lens when I'm shooting inside - I had an oven pancake shot that came out too dark, and this one came in at 6400 ISO.

March 13, 2010

Stuffed animal line-up.  Rachel had propped all of her animals on the chair for a bit of late-night television viewing.

March 12, 2010

Through the darkness of future past
The magican longs to see
One chance out between two worlds
Fire walk with me
-Mike (Twin Peaks)